A new report from ComScore states that Latin America’s online population grew faster than in any other global region in 2011, rising 16% to 129.3 million visitors by the end of the year.
The digital traffic was boosted by mobile phones and tablets use, which continues to grow as a proportion of digital traffic. Puerto Rico led the region with 7.7% of all digital traffic consumed away from a personal computer.
Apple was at the top of nearly all markets in share of non-computer traffic, fueled by the iPhone and iPad.
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Alejandro Fosk, ComScore SVP for Latin America, said that “2011 was an extraordinary year for digital media in the region as more people than ever before went online and began adopting behaviors like social networking and watching online video with increasing frequency.”
According to ComScore, social networking accounted for nearly 30% of online minutes at the end of the year, with Latin America home to five of the most engaged social networking markets worldwide.
In addition, online video viewing grew rapidly in 2011 as total videos viewed grew by double digits across Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, fueled by both an increase in audience and a surge in videos viewed per viewer.
The analysis firm pointed to Google Sites as the most-visited property in December 2011, reaching 123.4 million visitors in the region, while Facebook.com was the most-engaging web property accounting for 25% of all time spent online.
Entertainment sites continued to amass visitors in 2011, growing 14% to reach nearly 97% of all online users in the region. Peruvians, Colombians and Chileans spent the most time on entertainment sites, each country averaging more than four hours per visitor at the end of the year.
